Svalbard again

Following on from my post early last week Louis arrived in Jersey and it was great to catch up after nearly 30 years.  It is a privilege and fascinating to spend time with somebody whose life has been spent in such a complete contrast to our own.  I may have some idea about the challenges facing young people and education but ask me about how to clean eider down and it's price on the global market and I haven't a clue.

In 1983 I always planned to return to Svalbard to undertake some other entertaining adventures.  Most I have achieved, including sea kayaking in Greenland, but one or two have escaped me.  perhaps with contact re-established with Louis at least 1 of these challenges may be achievable.  Only time will tell but in the mean time here are a few more pictures taken in this arctic outpost over 30 years ago.  Apologies for the quality of some of the scans from my old slides.

Whilst sea kayaking off the west coast the scenery was particularly dramatic.  It doesn't matter how many photographs you see, nothing can prepare you for the first time you paddle past an ice front.

Conditions were not always co-operative.  We were aiming to camp near the approaching headland.  On most paddling days we spent about 8 hours on the water so it was always a pleasure to get the tents up and some warm food inside us on days like this one.

 In 1926 Roald Amundsen left from this tower, in Ny Alesund, in his airship "Norge" for his flight over the North Pole.  The other interesting thing about Ny Alesund is that it has the world's most northern post office and we were able to pick up some mail.

It was rare that we were able to stand around camp without full protective clothing on, but on this particularly still morning towards the north of Spitsbergen Dave is looking at the freshly fallen snow on the mountains behind.

 After a great days sea kayaking there is nothing more risky than jumping from one ice floe to another whilst wearing fleece trousers.

In totally remote areas there is nobody to see you when you decide to wander around on a glacier whilst wearing wellingtons.  You might not get away with this level of equipment on Mt Blanc!

Heading back into Longyearbyen towards the end of August, we had been in Svalbard for over 2 months and as the first of the winter snows fell we knew that it was time to head south to the warmer waters of Jersey.

Svalbard - 30 years on

In 1983 I was fortunate enough to spend two months sea kayaking in Spitsbergen, a truly memorable experience.  Whilst there we met a hunter who had a hut located on the northern shores of Bellsund, an area we would be kayaking through as we head towards the southern point of the archipelago.

A couple of nights in a hut, without the worry of being attacked by polar bears was a real bonus.  The hut was a haven of luxury in an otherwise remote wilderness.  During this 4 week section of the trip we didn't see another person, in those days Svalbard was a truly remote area.

The hunter, Louis after seeing our sea kayaks, decided that this was the type of craft that he needed.  I didn't really think much more about it until a few months later an immigration official telephoned me from Jersey Airport.  He got straight to the point, we have a man here who says that he is hunter in Spitsbergen and he has come to Jersey so that you can teach him to eskimo roll.  "Is this true"?

I wasn't in a position to deny this and so Louis entered Jersey and I did teach him to roll.  We met again a couple of months later at the annual Crystal Palace Canoe Exhibition, I introduced Louis to Frank Goodman and he purchased a kayak from Valley Canoe Products and in February 1984 he disappeared back to Svalbard to resume his life as a hunter.

Then out of the blue, tonight Louis called from St Malo and he arrives in Jersey Thursday morning, what an opportunity to catch up on 30 years of life in the arctic.

 The hut where we spent a couple of wonderful days, making full use of the facilities.

 The view from the front door.  At certain times of the year you would need to keep a watchful eye open for roaming polar bears.

The inside of the hut had a range of modern facilities.  Using the cooker was a pleasant change from trying to coax a reluctant primus stove into life.

It wasn't far to the nearest ice front.  In the evenings we could pass some time shooting the small ice bergs which drifted past on the tide.

Two nights later we were back in the tents.  After nearly 40 years of visiting the arctic this particular place still remains one of the bleakest places I have ever camped.

 One of the real advantages of paddling in the high arctic is that whenever the wind drops off you can go kayaking.  This is just after midnight.  I think that we were in bed by 06.00

 We didn't always have to paddle at night.  On a couple of the days that we were in Spitsbergen the sun actually shone as we approached one of the many ice fronts.

This ice front was nearly 10 miles wide. Quite a distance to be exposed to calving ice.

Dry suits

Whilst looking through some of my old slides I came across this one, which represents an interesting time in the evolution of modern kayak equipment.

It was taken in November 1982 on the beach at Greve de Lecq in Jersey.  It was an unusually cold day, note the snow on the front of the kayak.  I am the one in the paddling equipment, if you weren't sure.

Wind surfing was becoming popular a number were wearing this new clothing, a dry suit, prior to this evolution the dry suits were very basic items of equipment.  We were fortunate enough to be lent a dry suit 

One concern which was doing the round of the paddling community was that in the event of a capsize, if the dry suit hadn't been vented properly it was likely that the feet would fill with air and the kayaker would be suspended upside down.  My role, no pun intended, in this exercise was to paddle offshore, do a couple of rolls before capsizing and hopefully swimming ashore with my head above water.

As I am writing this 31 years later it is clear that being suspended upside down with your feet full of air was an urban myth.  So based on this rather unscientific experiment we ordered 6 dry suits and 7 months later flew out to Spitsbergen for a 2 month trip.  As far as I am aware we were one of the first sea kayaking trips to use the modern dry suit, an item of equipment, which today is virtually essential for any self respecting sea kayaker. 

 Typical kayaking conditions in NW Spitsbergen, just short of 80 degrees N.

If you are contemplating sea conditions like these a dry suit is pretty essential.

 The sea is frozen just in front of the paddlers, wearing dry suits in conditions like this made life on expedition bearable.  It was a complete revelation to us over 30 years ago.

Arctic Sea Kayaking

I have been slowly going through my slide collection and scanning in a few of the more memorable sea kayaking shots and have put together this group of pictures of one of my first sea kayaking trips when we paddled the length of the west coast of Spitsbergen over a period of 2 months.

We encountered a wide range of conditions and almost no other people.  It was a particularly bad summer weather wise, when we arrived at the end of June the sea was still frozen and by the end of August we were pinned in the tents in a 36 hour blizzard, the first of the impending winter.

In contrast to a lot of trips that you read about today we were relatively young, nobody was over 30 years old and I suppose the average was 25. 

It was also ground breaking in a number of ways, for example, we were as far as we were aware the first sea kayak expedition to use drysuits, they had just become available because of developments in wind surfing.

There is no escaping that it was a harsh 650 nautical miles that we paddled and looking back at the conditions we encountered it is hard to believe that things have changed so dramatically that some companies will take relative novices paddling in these waters.

It was almost the golden time of sea kayaking expeditions, with groups of paddlers heading off into distant waters, returning home to write the inevitable expedition report and give a lecture at the Canoe Exhibitions at Crystal Palace the following February.

Heading out from Longyearbyen on the first day, we were half way across a 15nm open crossing when we found that the sea was frozen.  A lengthy detour was required to make safe landfall on the northern side of the fjord.  It really was a baptism by fire.

Campsite on the first night. The winter snow drifts were still banked along the shore, making landing difficult.  We spent the evening familiarizing ourselves with the rifles which we were carrying with us in case of encounters with polar bears. 

An evening walk.  Dave, in the green jacket, has his rifle at the ready.  It was necessary to carry firearms wherever we went.

A very bleak campsite close to the Torrellbreen glacier.  Apart from out tents the scene as almost completely devoid of colour.  I remember feeling that this was a very bleak spot!

Another typical summer campsite.  We had sewn extra material to the flysheets so that they could be weighted down with stones.  It was often difficult to get pegs into the ground so we would tie the guy lines to drift wood or as in this picture, whale vertebrae.

We experienced some extended periods of poor weather, the air temperature was hovering about 0 degrees and the sea was often full of ice.  We were stuck on this beach for 3 days. 

Being stuck on beaches did allow a certain degree of creativity with the cooking.  This is instant whip being encouraged to solidify using the local ice.

The major concern for us was the possibility of an encounter with a polar bear.  We took full precautions including rifles in each tent plus alarms around the tents.  This bear (Apologies for the quality of the photo but I was still in my sleeping bag and trying to grab a rifle, as well as take a picture) had been swimming past and had come out of the sea to investigate what these strange shapes were on the beach. 

This is not sensible but we were young and foolish.

Often we would try to stay on the water for most of the day as landing was frequently very cold and once ashore we would need to have the tents up.  This wasn't ideal picnic territory.

 Just finishing our circumnavigation of Amsterdamoya.  We were just a few miles short of 80 degrees north and were starting to head back south.  At this point we hadn't seen another human being for over 2 weeks and it would be another week before we came across some Russian scientists.  In 1983 tourism had not taken off in this part of the world.

 Pete Scott and myself in front of one of the many glaciers, we had just had a very close and memorable encounter with some beluga whales.

 These paddlers (just visible) are too close to the ice front and we quickly moved away when some fairly large bits calved off.

Even on rest days we would get out and explore this pristine environment.  This was heading up one of the glaciers towards the main ice cap.

Great days, we spent two months wandering around this stunning archipelago, encountered almost no human beings and had just a superb time.

Sea Kayaking Destinations

If like me you end up spending a lot of time on aircraft ( an inevitable consequence of living on an island) there are plenty of opportunities to get some unusual pictures of some classic sea kayaking destinations.  This is just a selection of some of the views I have seen over the last 30 years.  Most of them were taken either heading towards a paddling trip or coming home from one.  Great memories.

 This is possibly my oldest aerial shot.  Scanned from a slide it was taken as we approached Spitsbergen in June 1983.  We were just about to embark on a two month sea kayaking expedition along the west coast of the Arctic archipelago.  I still remember the excitement as we approached Longyearbyen, we really were heading into the unknown.  

 This is home.  It was a steep take off as we headed towards Gatwick en route to a Scottish Sea Kayak Symposium.  Although many people consider Jersey to be crowded the overall impression is still of a green island and once on the water it is possible to escape any crowds which might exist.

 This must be one of my favourite sea kayaking destinations, the Ecrehous.  We were flying back from Cherbourg, in an aircraft that was nearly 60 years old, when we were able to do a few circuits above the reef.

This is the only photograph I didn't take.  It is from the same aircraft as the Ecrehous shot though.  I do like it particularly as I am in the party of kayakers who are playing off Noirmont point on the south coast of Jersey.

The Needles and Hurst Castle Spit as we headed home one evening from Gatwick to Jersey.  Great paddling but I am almost embarrassed to admit that I haven't paddled in these waters since 1983.  I really should do something about it.

Another south coast headland, Berry Head.  Again somewhere I haven't paddled for years, the last time my paddle was dipped in these waters was 1996.

 The Solway Firth taken whilst heading home from a Scottish Sea Kayak Symposium.  We took off from Glasgow on a beautiful Sunday morning and the whole of Britain was free of cloud.

 En route to another Symposium, this time Shetland.  It was a beautiful flight up from Aberdeen with great views of Fair Isle.  It was just a pity that the weather didn't stay like this for the following week, but the beauty of Shetland is that there is always somewhere sheltered to paddle.

Another Scottish island. Stornoway from about 40,000 feet as we headed into Heathrow from Seattle.  The whole of the west coast of Scotland looked superb, it was easy to see why it is one of the great sea kayaking areas.

 Take from Ilulissat with the ice fjord just south of the town.  Views like this can't fail to excite you.

So next time you fly try and get that window seat, have your camera at the ready and hope for clear skies.